If merit awards (scholarships) are one way you anticipate paying for college, then you need to identify schools which give merit awards, and for what level of achievements. Many to most of the most selective New England (and Middle Atlantic) liberal arts colleges do not give merit-based awards, only financial need. So, the NESCAC schools (Tufts, Williams, Amherst, Trinity, Conn, Bates etc) do not give merit awards. Haverford, Swarthmore, Vassar, Franklin & Marshall do not give merit awards.
The women’s colleges – Mt Holyoke and Bryn Mawr – do give merit awards. Dickinson in PA (in between Philly and Pittsburgh) gives up to about $22,000 a year in merit to high achieving students. St Lawrence in upstate (very upstate) NY also gives generous merit awards.
I believe Gettysburg gives merit awards, but I may be mis-remembering about that. It came off my kid’s list, but I can’t recall if it was because of lack of merit awards or something else. Other schools with more of a STEM (and business) orientation include Bucknell, Lafayette and Lehigh, though I don’t recall their merit policies.
You can research specific schools’ merit awards by googling the school name and “common data set” and look at the Financial AId section, Section H, under the “Non-Need Based Scholarships and Grants” – that will tell you how much of the entering class received merit awards and the average amount. You can look at the Admissions section, Section C, to see where your gpa/test scores put you in terms of their admitted students – to receive merit award, the general rule of thumb is that a student must be in at least the top 25% of the admitted class.
In finding other schools, consider the characteristics of your “dream” school that are most important to you – whether those include strength in specific departments, type of distribution requirements, greek life, athletics etc – whatever they may be. Then, you can look for schools which overlap with those characteristics but may be more affordable.
Most of the east coast LACs cost $60-65k this year for tuition and room and board. For a full pay family, the way to reduce the cost is to (1) get merit award and/or (2) identify schools with lower list price. Schools in the midwest and south may give more merit awards in order to draw students from outside the region, and some have lower tuition and room and board to start with. For instance, Denison, about 30 minutes east of Columbus, Ohio, gives generous merit awards and tuition and room and board is around $60 this year. Lawrence University, Beloit, Kalamazoo, Earlham, Knox and Wooster all have somewhat lower costs (tuition in the range of $45 and room and board often under $10k, so the full price is already under $55). Plus, they give generous merit awards to high achieving students. Centre College and Rhodes College also give good merit awards, and I recall Centre’s tuition is lower than east coast schools.
Grinnell, in Iowa, is a top liberal arts college with excellent science and undergrad research. It does give merit, but not nearly as often as other midwest schools (and it is not located near a city). Many people think that if Grinnell were in PA, CT, MA rather than Iowa, it would be a top 5-10 ranked school. While I realize that Iowa is way off your geographic preference, the idea is to consider what are the most important factors in your search and identify other schools that meet those preferences. You may find that the geographic scope can be pushed a little, for the right school. Or you may decide that geography is non-negotiable.